Trump administration live updates: Trump, NATO leader to meet at White House

The Department of Education's far-reaching layoffs have decimated a small statistical agency considered to be the "authoritative and trusted source" of information on the education system in the United States, several former employees familiar with the situation told ABC News.

Since the 1860s, the National Center for Education Statistics has collected data used to measure academic success, productivity and crime and safety in schools, among other topics.

It issues a congressionally-mandated test called the National Assessment of Education Progress -- better known as the Nation's Report Card -- which, since 1969, has been considered the gold standard of testing to compare the academic performance and progress of students across all 50 states.

But as of this week, nearly all of the agency's statisticians have been fired, according to former employees, gutting the agency and raising questions about how it can continue its work to measure the performance of the country's 18,000 school districts or the efficacy of any policy changes.

-ABC News' Benjamin Siegel

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to pass the House-approved deal to fund the government.

If a deal isn't struck, the government will shut down on Friday at midnight.

Schumer pointed the finger at Republicans for leaving Democrats out of the funding negotiations.

"Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path drafting their continuing resolution without any input any input from congressional Democrats," Schumer said on the floor.

After days of closed-door meetings and tight-lipped interaction with the press, Schumer said Democrats will instead advocate for a 30-day clean stop gap bill meant to buy more time for appropriators to complete full-year funding bills.

"Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the got open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass," Schumer said.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin

The president was asked if America had a future in NATO to which President Donald Trump answered the alliance had to "treat us fairly if they pay their bills."

Trump continued to make unverified claims that the U.S. was paying more than other NATO nations.

President Donald Trump declined to get into specifics when asked what he can do to pressure Russia to agree to the ceasefire proposal.

"We can, but I hope it's not going to be necessary," he said.

"There are things you could do that that wouldn't be pleasant in a financial sense," he added without diving into any specifics. "I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia. I don't want to do that because I want to get peace."

The president then reiterated his past comments that Ukraine was a bigger obstacle in negotiations.

"We've got Ukraine done. And, as you as you know, I've always said that Ukraine might have been the more difficult party," he said.